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The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved Rs 2,207 crore for National Food Security Mission (NFSM) for the year 2014-15. An overall target of food grain production of 25 million tonnes -– 10 million tonnes rice, eight million tonnes of wheat, and four million tonnes of pulses by the end of 12th five year plan (2016-17) -– has been worked out under the Mission.
For better marketing and availability of the produce, the government has approved an integrated scheme for agricultural marketing with overall budgetary allocation of Rs 4,548 crore during the 12th plan. The primary objective of the scheme is to promote creation of agricultural marketing infrastructure by providing backend subsidy support to state, cooperative and private sector investments.
For continuation of this programme around Rs 12,000 crore has been allocated for the entire plan period till the end of 2016-17. Commercial crops such as cotton, jute and sugarcane have been included under NFSM and accordingly Rs 150 crore has been allotted for these crops in the plan period.
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A major change in allocation has been that the centre will no more directly get involved in disbursing the amount to its state level counterparts. In order to ensure state government participation, funds under NFSM will be transferred to various states. The states will then allocate the funds to its various state level agencies.
The new interventions included under NFSM for 12th Plan are cropping system approach, assistance for availing the services of custom hiring centres, support to institutions / organizations including NGOs for demonstration of crop production technologies in remote areas, specialized projects for high productivity area (reclamation of problematic soil, development of water logged areas and combatting climate change), marketing support for pulses and millets (incentive for insurance cover, Dal Mill and Millet processing unit), value chain integration of small farmers through formation of FPOs.
From the central level, the government is supporting mobilization of Farmer producer Organisations (FPOs) in a big way for focused growth of crops and cereals. This is being done through the society formed under its aegis known as Small Farmers’ Agri Consortium (SFAC). According to officials, the idea is to mobilise group of small farmers to broad base the production area and harmonise the production of food crops across various strata of farmers.
Under technology mission for oilseeds and pulses owing to its inadequacy to cater to domestic demand, a grant of Rs 50 crore has been allocated to small farmers’ agri business consortium, (SFAC). SFAC is a society exclusively promoted for mobilizing FPOs.
Over and above the general outlay under the mission to boost the production, this project for promotion of FPOs is intended to develop value chain of pulses and millets. According to officials, the project not only intends to boost production but also engage FPOs in marketing from farm gate to the market to cut down the transaction cost, thus help FPOs to develop the entire value chain.
